Former True Finns Party eats itself.

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The True Finns party had been one of the major Nordic eurosceptic parties in recent years, winning 38 seats in 2015, and joining the ruling Finnish coalition. Since entering government, however, their popularity has waned, and its leader Tino Soini (who converted to Catholicism after a visit to Ireland) resigned. The leadership election saw a major rift in the party, however, between mainstream eurosceptics, and the successful anti-immigration, anti-Islamic wing. This prompted the old guard to form a new party called New Alternative (20 seats), while the remnant Finns Party's 15 MPs have been kicked out of government:

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The True Finns party had been one of the major Nordic eurosceptic parties in recent years, winning 38 seats in 2015, and joining the ruling Finnish coalition. Since entering government, however, their popularity has waned, and its leader Tino Soini (who converted to Catholicism after a visit to Ireland) resigned. The leadership election saw a major rift in the party, however, between mainstream eurosceptics, and the successful anti-immigration, anti-Islamic wing. This prompted the old guard to form a new party called New Alternative (20 seats), while the remnant Finns Party's 15 MPs have been kicked out of government:

The real Historian would probably agree with you but is afraid of the fascists in the media, is islam progressive or even compatable with advancement when rooted so much in the past ? absolutely not, Ataturk would be dismayed at the parish pump goat fooker in charge of Turkey at the moment,,

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The True Finns party had been one of the major Nordic eurosceptic parties in recent years, winning 38 seats in 2015, and joining the ruling Finnish coalition. Since entering government, however, their popularity has waned, and its leader Tino Soini (who converted to Catholicism after a visit to Ireland) resigned. The leadership election saw a major rift in the party, however, between mainstream eurosceptics, and the successful anti-immigration, anti-Islamic wing. This prompted the old guard to form a new party called New Alternative (20 seats), while the remnant Finns Party's 15 MPs have been kicked out of government:

Well-known member

The True Finns party had been one of the major Nordic eurosceptic parties in recent years, winning 38 seats in 2015, and joining the ruling Finnish coalition. Since entering government, however, their popularity has waned, and its leader Tino Soini (who converted to Catholicism after a visit to Ireland) resigned. The leadership election saw a major rift in the party, however, between mainstream eurosceptics, and the successful anti-immigration, anti-Islamic wing. This prompted the old guard to form a new party called New Alternative (20 seats), while the remnant Finns Party's 15 MPs have been kicked out of government:

A technical note: Soini didn't resign, but chose to not run for the chairman after having done a 22 year tenure. The transition to under new leadership didn't go as expected as the favorites of the old leadership lost all the votings for all the four positions of chairmans and vice-chairmans. The Halla-ahoan elements didn't leave one position to the Soinians, which obviously disgruntled that denomination.

The behind-the-curtains shenanigans are only gradually coming to fore. Who-knew-whats are questioned and answered, of the long mobilization in darkness of the Party Assembly voters by the Halla-ahoan side ahead the event, and of exactly how much the chairmen of the other cabinet parties and Soini had pre-prepared to the eventuality.

The latest is that a portion of the "New Option" rifters would have been fooled to their hasty rifting by false claims that Nazi salutes would have been thrown at the Assembly after the Halla-aho victory, backed up with a photo that in reality is from a hand-raising vote on a completely different matter on the next day.

Many in the party have genuinely and justifiedly been disillusioned with the Finns Party's journey in the government, where the party that came as the 2nd biggest from the election as the first thing passed the powerful Ministry of Economy to the Coalition and saw Soini take the Foreign Ministry instead. It's been pretty obvious that Center and Coalition Parties have treated the Finns as an auxiliary party from the get-go, pursuing economically right-wing politics that have seen the supposedly "small people" Finns Party losing half of the support in the post-election polls.

When it still looked like an option that Halla-aho-chaired party might stay in the cabinet, the new chairman made a point of noting that they are fully behind of the Government Platform agreed on in 2015 and are rather only expecting that the points important to the Finns Party would also be put in force. He has called that the rifters, whose new party-lette will now stay in the cabinet as "silent partners" in the cabinet, and the situation certainly warrants one having that view.

One of the reasons given to the emission of Halla-aho&gang from the government were about the other government partners not being able to count on their backing in the EU tables where things will be negotiated going forwards and where mere nay-saying won't be tolerated. This certainly puts the supposedly Eurosceptic Soinians in bad light, if the rifting faction is to now be the guaranteer of what will essentially be further integration. The actual issues leading to the emergence of the Finns Party haven't gone anywhere, and the fact that failed asylum seekers have been having a protest camp in middle of Helsinki for months now certainly laughs in the face of the Government Platform point about "effective repatriation of those illegally in the country".

Somewhat hilariously this is the day where the Greek need for more money seems to surface the headlines. Center and Coalition parties have their favorite projects going on in the government as we speak in delicate phase; the Center is looking for a provincial administration renovation that would consolidate the power of the party that's big mainly in the rural areas, and the economically right-wing Coalition has their beloved Free Option model in the Social&Healthcare renovation that would see the private sector largely taking over the field. The opposition has been barking about the need for new elections in face of the would-have-been governmental crisis, which would be costly especially to Center and would ruin both the projects. The New Optioners probably would like to be re-elected in two years.

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You don't even know the best: two years back Soini was a bit wary of the Halla-aho elements and a potential rift, and the first thing the government he was in was to remove an old Section of Law that allowed rifters to take their portion of party allowances with them. In this turn of event, the Halla-ahoan wing gets to keep all the dough. At the same time, Soini organized the funds of the party to be locked into a Finns Party Support Foundation that's locked behind him and an old trusted buddy, much for the same reason.

Next up, the fight about monies.

Though... Halla-aho certainly will be ungagged from now on, and he's a one issue man, so there is the slight chance that for his agenda it's more effective to be outside of the government and to be able to challenge freely the government politics on the matter. He was in the boat pissing out, now he's out of the boat and pissing in.

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Yeah I think you have to settle for Halla-aho being a Ph.D. in Old Church Slavonic and just be happy about that. I wonder how long it will take for our linguist to publicly remind us of the archaic meaning of "soini", from Old Norse 'sveinn': swain, or squire, or the second-fiddler you see hanging out around and following knights, but certainly as not their peer.

Very minor tremor may be seen in the European Parliament, where Halla-aho currently serves as a MEP and will likely see his party ditch ECR for EFDD, quite likely prompting the other, Soinian Finns Party MEP to stay in ECR, bringing the rupture to this level too.

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All the (formerly) Finns Party ministers (and every other) got to keep their ministries, despite the "party" being now reduced to about 20 MPs from the former 37. The leaders of Center and Coalition promptly marketed it as a "comprehensive solution" to keep the cabinet intact, but various second tier MPs in the said parties are a bit disgruntled about that, for obvious and understandably human reasons.

When the news of the potential breakage of the cabinet came out during the weekend, there were expectations that some Finns Party MPs might rift to back up the government. The huge amount of 20 (and counting) was a surprise, though questions are in the air if it was such big one to everyone concerned in the end: suspicions of shenanigans run wild not only among the Halla-ahoan Finns Party ousted from the government, but also among the Christian Democrats and Swedish People's Party who were strong and acknowledged candidates to substitute the Finns Party in the cabinet, but who may have ended up to have been used as merely a smokescreen. What did who know and when?

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Yeah I think you have to settle for Halla-aho being a Ph.D. in Old Church Slavonic and just be happy about that. I wonder how long it will take for our linguist to publicly remind us of the archaic meaning of "soini", from Old Norse 'sveinn': swain, or squire, or the second-fiddler you see hanging out around and following knights, but certainly as not their peer.

Very minor tremor may be seen in the European Parliament, where Halla-aho currently serves as a MEP and will likely see his party ditch ECR for EFDD, quite likely prompting the other, Soinian Finns Party MEP to stay in ECR, bringing the rupture to this level too.

That is interesting. I have a friend who is a Jewess who converted to a very psycho form of Eastern Orthodoxy, she is convinced that if a Church uses the Gregorian Calendar than all its Sacraments are Graceless (she actually goes further and talks about them being the food of demons- and people think that I'm extreme!). She particularly has it in for the Finnish Orthodox Church because all the Eastern Orthodox Churches that use the Gregorian Calendar don't use it as regards Easter apart from the one in Finland.

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That is interesting. I have a friend who is a Jewess who converted to a very psycho form of Eastern Orthodoxy, she is convinced that if a Church uses the Gregorian Calendar than all its Sacraments are Graceless (she actually goes further and talks about them being the food of demons- and people think that I'm extreme!). She particularly has it in for the Finnish Orthodox Church because all the Eastern Orthodox Churches that use the Gregorian Calendar don't use it as regards Easter apart from the one in Finland.

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Oh, right, and: I don't know if you're how acquainted with our municipal scene, but our municipalities are quite autonomous in their dealings, and are (at least still) responsible for social services, healthcare and education up to partially the tertiary level, so the city/municipal councils are kind of big deal in our context.

And, we're recently out of the municipal elections, and the new councils are meeting the first time around these times, and the Finns Party naturally is a factor in this quite grassroot level of governance too. And we have absolutely no idea how they are going to handle this rift in the state politics in each of the 300+ councils. :lol:

That's btw an internationally interesting aspect in this. There will be likeking of Halla-Aho's "Finland Democrats" to the popularly isolated Sweden Democrats in our western neighbor (and Halla-Aho said freshly after the vote that he will look for some cooperation with SD). It has now been staked that they are too unreliable as a government partner, but in all likeliness there won't be happening a total isolation of the 15 Parliamentary electees as with SD in Sweden. Actually the ship for that kind of categorical "No" has already sailed, as there was the make-beliveau meeting where the cabinet-eligibility of Halla-Aho-led Finns Party was supposedly tested by PM Sipila and Coalition chair Orpo before the initial decision by the two and their groups about the cabinet resigning was made.

Obviously every MP in the party has sat in the Parliament for at least two years already without visible problem, so it'd be pretty cynical move to make an ado now, especially as there won't probably be any party program alteration. Of course, the youth divisions came out on Monday with the expected statements about "no room for fascists in Finnish government!" kind, but those were somewhat silly after their initial statements two days earlier freshly after the result came out, where they merely demanded Halla-Aho to confirm his alignment with universal human rights as a condition for continued cabinet cooperation.